Andalucía - travel memories

In our house, we are avid fans of the Tour de France and would
normally move heaven and earth to see as much of Le Tour on the TV as possible.
For the past couple of years we started to follow the Giro d'Italia, but surprisingly,
we have never watched the Vuelta a España, the big cycling tour of Spain. Maybe
the TV coverage is move extensive this year, I guess. Anyway, this past week
the riders covered a lot of ground in the area of Andalucía in the South of
Spain. They started in Jerez and cycled through towns such as Rhonda, Cordoba
and Granada.

All the beautiful sights on TV made me rather nostalgic. In
2006, pre-baby for me and pre-marriage for my sister, the two of us set off for
Spain. We hired a car in Malaga and for the next 10 days we made funny and heart-warming
memories travelling through Andalucía. Elanie’s suitcase did not arrive in
Malaga and for the first three days she wore my clothes – we look like twins in
my standard strappy-top-and-khaki-shirt holiday outfits. We were bitten by
bedbugs in a really nice youth hostel in Seville, ate delicious ice cream in Puerto
Banus, leant how to drive like the Spaniards (hanging out the winding and
shouting “pasar, pasar” while we try to read our inadequate maps) and got tipsy
in 45 degrees Celsius (the sherry houses in Jerez are not shy when they pour
tasters). Whereas Elanie loved the warm weather I actually started to cry in
Cordoba because of the heat, but it was still one of the most incredible places
I’ve ever been. We saw row upon row of olive trees, watched the Andalusian
horses dance, drank lots of Lemon Kass, stumbled on a local pilgrimage in a small
town and watched locals playing and dancing the flamenco. The trip was also
special for another reason. The age difference between Elanie and me is five
years and before this trip that gap meant that we lived our separate lives far
from each other, but this trip cemented a friendship beyond just sisterly love.

So, I dusted off the hard drive with the photos of our trip
and thought I’ll share a few of those memories with you….

Image credits: We downloaded all our photos to one place, but I am pretty sure most of these ones (especially the really nice ones) were taken by Elanie.